While I think he makes sense in some ways, he's paid 3m and I don't think the Canucks are looking are looking for someone on the right side. They've talked up Desharnais a lot, gave him a higher cap hit and some term, plus have more NHL depth on the right side with Juulsen and Friedman. I think they'll look for a two-way LD, similar to Zadorov last season. Then they can play that player with Desharnais and keep Soucy-Myers together.
Yeah. I actually liked Liljegren as a potential target to add some more mobility to our back end if the Leafs wanted to move on and rejig their blueline...But it seems very much like any improvement is more likely to be targeted on the Left side of the D now. The way they talk about Desharnais (and the contract they gave him) screams very much a guy they expect to be a fixture behind Hronek and Myers. So in theory at least, it'd be LHD that we're looking at for once. Which is an unusual frame of mind to get into.
The other guy i was intrigued by as a Hoglander deal was Justin Barron out of MTL...but again, he's a RHD, so that's probably not somewhere they'd look now.
I'm not sure of a player of similar age to Hoglander who could be available that fits that mold.
Orlov
Provorov
M. Pettersson
Are rentals that could be available.
I don't think there's any way the Canes move Orlov after losing their entire 2nd pairing this summer.
Pettersson would be funny, and is actually a pretty solid defenceman. He's going to come at a high price though i think, and honestly...probably only "worth it" if he'd be playing with Hronek. I think he's one of those guys who kinda needs a more aggressive puck-mover on his pairing to really thrive.
Now Provorov...that's a guy i've definitely looked at as an option to upgrade the mobility on our defence and add a legitimate Top-4D to the mix at LHD. Expiring contract, and the really interesting thing is...he's pretty cheap on the cap, and could be made even cheaper with further retention. They could theoretically get him down to ~$2.4M. Which would be huge in our cap situation.
Definitely one of my top targets, and it doesn't seem like Columbus are very likely to try to hold onto him, so he seems very much available and on the market.
Martin Fehervary (Capitals) and Alexander Romanov (Islanders) fit the bill.
Romanov would be a huge get. That's a long-term Top-4 fixture right there. But for that reason, i don't see why the Isles would have even the slightest twinge of interest in trading Dobson's likely long-term "top pair" partner, on a great value $2.5M contract with RFA control remaining.
Fehervary on the other hand, falls a little bit on the opposite end of that for me. Where i'm not sure how much i'd want to lock in and commit to a guy who seems to be moving backwards a bit. But i've also never been the biggest fan of him in the first place.
He hasn’t played centre regularly in a very long time. He takes face-offs but he’s not a centre.
So you could acquire him looking for a right handed faceoff guy since he’s very good at face-offs.
He’s actually make sense in the Lindholm-mold only actually play on Pettersson’s wing.
mmmmm. Pettersson with Giroux. That'd be fun. Would easily be the most creative, high skill player he's played with here. Someone who can think the game on his level. Could be special if they could find some way to pull that off at the deadline.
I’m not sure Fobort can keep up with the type of minutes you’d want Hronek playing in that scenario. You want him at least close to 20 mins per game. Forbort did that a few times with the Bruins but not regularly.
You probably want a way to find Soucy more minutes than Forbort.
I don't think this is really that big of a deal. In fact, it probably actually simplifies things a little bit if it's:
Hughes - Desharnais
Forbort - Hronek
Soucy - Myers
In that you've got Soucy-Myers that works well and gets them both pretty appropriate minutes together. Then you simply play Hronek as much as Forbort can keep up with...then let him spend another ten minutes a night playing with Hughes, because i don't think Desharnais is going to be able to handle all of the minutes you want Hughes playing either.
Puts Foote through the works managing that on the bench, but i think any way you split Hughes/Hronek with the personnel we have now, you're going to end up with some sort of rotations/double-shifting to make the minutes all settle out as desired.
